Cesar CantuAll you need to understand about digitalization and technological advancement in Latin America can be learned by tracing the evolution of a single cultural phenomenon in the region: Internet cafés.
Internet cafés arrived in Latin America –like in many other parts of the world– during the mid 90s, sold on their promise to democratize access to the techno dreams of global interconnectivity, a seemingly unending ecosystem of relevant information and the chance to speak with anyone in the world.
A report from a Colombian newspaper, dated 1996, hypes Internet cafés as spots where one “can access the latest in computer technology, with Internet access through a variety of web browsers, such as Netscape or Microsoft’s Explorer.”
The sales pitch continues, characterizing these cafés as safe havens for technically savvy misfits; places where “those who have escaped the grip of so-called experts and jumped deep into the world of the Internet” can find like-minded individuals not only sitting next to them, but thousands of miles away.
It was a libertarian fantasy of true globalization, and you only had to pay about a dollar an hour to experience it. In countries where the bulk of the population earned, on average, less than US$5 per day, that wasn’t such a bad deal.
According to Mexico’s Internet Association, in 2002, 15% of web traffic in the country came from Internet cafés. Four years later, the volume had jumped to 39% of overall traffic. In Chile, 19% of browsing happened in Internet cafés during 2006. In Brazil, in 2010, there were around 100,000 establishments classified as Internet cafés –known locally as “LAN houses”–, servicing over 30 million users in the country, according to government data.
The model was attractive not only to users. Mom-and-pop businesses made decent money turning their establishments into Internet cafés. Corner stores, small pharmacies and even hair salons installed a couple of desktop computers and charged for service. In poorer neighborhoods, actual houses opened a segment of their living rooms to the public, renting out the family computer. There were also –at least in Mexico– Internet café chains spread throughout the country’s bigger cities.
It was a bonanza of sorts, built on the back of the inequalities ailing the region. Desktop computers were a luxury very few Latin American households could afford, and Internet access at the time made little sense for families with a single phone line.
But the bonanza came to an end in the mid 2010s.
A sudden death
The death of the Internet café in Latin America was as sudden as its rise.
In 2014, Internet cafés represented 30% of web access in Mexico. By 2016, the number had collapsed to 14%. Just a year later, it had fallen to 5%, according to the country’s Internet Association. By 2018, the association stopped tracking web traffic coming from Internet cafés.
In Chile, web traffic from Internet cafés fell from a fifth of overall volume to just 1.8% in a single decade. Colombia saw the closure of over 10,000 Internet establishments between 2013 and 2019. Though there is no official number, it is estimated that thousands more died out in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Internet café died in Latin America because the democratization of digital access became much closer to reality in just a handful of years and through an unexpected source: mobile phones.
Mobile Internet has been a powerful tool to close the digital gap in many developing economies. African, Middle Eastern and Latin American populations have been able to finally own the promise of global connectivity –and now in the palm of their hands– through a combination of affordable smartphones, cheap data plans and public wi-fi spots.
By the end of 2023, there were 418 million mobile Internet users in Latin America, according to a study by mobile operator organization GSMA. This accounts for 65% of the region’s population, an increase of 75 million users in just five years and almost double the 230 million registered a decade earlier.
GSMA expects mobile Internet users in the region to reach 485 million in 2030, with 55% of the total connected to 5G. Currently, only 5% of Latin American users have a 5G mobile connection.
In short: mobile Internet quickly replaced the model of “digitalization for rent” of Internet cafés for a more solid –and affordable– sense of ownership of that technological dream. Why pay an hourly rate for Internet access when you can buy the data you need for the week for less than half the price?
Economists, analysts, public policy makers and academics have unintentionally –and very coldly– sang the death of the Internet café in Latin America. The meteoric rise of mobile Internet connectivity in the region has helped in closing its digital gap and brought several of its countries closer to the pace of technological development taking place in the rest of the world.
It is a false sense of achievement, however.
An incomplete solution
Today, Internet cafés are a very, very scarce sight across Latin America. Peruvians post on Reddit, wondering if “game centers” still exist somewhere in the country. Brazilians do the same thing, fishing for the nostalgia of LAN houses.
“I want to imagine that in some distant corner of Brazil there still remains some crystallization of this idyllic past of online civilization, but I worry that it may have already entered into absolute extinction,” a Brazilian waxes poetic in a reddit post. A fellow national responds, reporting bitter sights of “nothing more than computers to access email and print something; nothing like it used to be.”
In Mexico, most Internet cafés have devolved into a similar form: glorified printing posts annexed to a bodega, a pharmacy or an office supplies store.
While more affordable than 25 years ago, not many households have a desktop computer or even a laptop at home. The number of computer users in Mexico –including desktops, laptops and tablets– dropped from 51% of the population in 2015 to 37% in 2022, according to the country’s latest official data on tech usage. Computer ownership in Mexican households remained around 44% over that seven year period. In contrast, Internet users shot from 57% to 78%, and mobile phone users from 71% to 79%.
At first glance, it would seem that, at least in Mexico, the crisis of affordability is no more, allowing for a considerable reduction of the digital gap. However, the death of Internet cafés and the meteoric rise of mobile connectivity tells another story too.
In Mexico –and the rest of Latin America–, the only way to allow for technological access and digital inclusion is to make the technological requirements as cheap as possible. It’s not about lifting the economic standing of the population, allowing them to afford a ticket to a globalized tech ecosystem. It’s about providing ultra-affordable alternatives to let them in, even when they remain marginal in their inclusion.
The realities of global tech inclusion are very different for the majority of Latin America’s population. While developed economies get to ride inside the rocket shooting for space, most Latin Americans have to dig their fingers into the belly of the ship, hanging for their dear lives as the vessel accelerates.
As of 2022, about a quarter of Latin American homes in urban areas lacked internet access, according to the latest data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). In rural areas, lack of Internet reached 64%. GSMA’s study estimates that 225 million people in the region have no Internet connection.
The evolution of the Internet café encapsulates Latin America’s unfulfilled promise of tech inclusion. Connectivity has been achieved, but it is far from the dream of access to a technologically advanced, globalized world.
What exists today in most of the region is an ultra-cheap version of that dream. A version that allows governments and industry to applaud illusory advances in equality, while the gaps remain as visible as ever.
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